


metharocin, tears or the sea

by ienablu



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Drift Side Effects, Gen, Major Illness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-09
Updated: 2014-01-09
Packaged: 2018-01-08 04:08:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1128148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ienablu/pseuds/ienablu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chuck washes up on the shores of Hong Kong coughing up salt water and his nose bleeding.</p><p>Chuck washes up on the shores of Hong Kong burning alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	metharocin, tears or the sea

**Author's Note:**

> This was written just to shake off writer's block, and turned into something I actually really like.
> 
> Although I did some research into the medical aspects, I am no expert, and I apologize for any inaccuracies.

Chuck washes up on the shores of Hong Kong coughing up salt water and his nose bleeding.

Chuck washes up on the shores of Hong Kong burning alone.

 

Chuck doesn't know what happens, he's fading in and out of consciousness, all he knows is that he is scared and he can't help but laugh.

 

He laughs as he wakes up in Kodiak, Alaska, holding up his arms against the pillow Tams keeps bringing down on him. 

It's the day after his sister's would-have-been birthday, and last night had consisted of a lot of drunken melancholy wishes she was still here. Up until the point Tamsin had announced "Fuck that, we're still alive," and a fire had become lit in her, and he felt it too.

 

He wakes up and he doesn't know where he is.

He looks around, but just moving his head from one side to the other makes him nauseous and disorientated, and he's having difficulty breathing.

Cool hands settle on either side of his face, and he flinches at the touch, but then he recognizes his father's voice.

He can't make out the words, but he makes out the key facts:

He's in Hong Kong.

He's in a hospital.

He's here alone because Stacker didn't make it.

Chuck blinks a few times, and finally manages to focus on his father's face. He sees the haunted face of his father in the present day and he sees the laughing Lucky Seven pilot from memories that aren't his and the images switch with a dizzying speed. He's having difficulty breathing and his vision goes dark.

 

He wakes up in Honolulu, having fallen asleep on a couch.

"Tams," he says, as the smell of bacon greets him. "You can't eat that," he tells her.

"I know," she replies, flippant. "But you can."

And then he can't.

There's bacon on his tray in the hospital in Hong Kong and he just stares at it, and he loves the smell, but his stomach turns uncomfortably as he picks it up to eat it.

He sets it back down, and eats the other food on his plate.

Then he throws it up ten minutes later.

 

"It'll be alright," his father whispers to him, late at night, when Chuck thinks he should be asleep (and he is asleep he fell asleep in Lima), and his throat works and he wants to talk to his father but his father and Herc are two different people and he's always found it easier to talk to Herc.

 

"What the fuck is going on with me?" Chuck finally manages to spit out, the first time he feels like Chuck.

His father turns towards him, his eyes going wide. They had been watching some mindless soap opera, and it had been quiet and peaceful much like the few times when they had Tendo or Hermann agree to look over Mako and Chuck--

Chuck's hands go up to tug at his hair, runs his fingernails against his scalp.

"You're ghosting," his father tells him, voice and gaze sad.

Chuck blinks, and tries to figure out why. He Drifted with Stacker, he fought with Stacker, and then...

Chuck doubles over, as the memory finally hits him -- he remembers Stacker remembering _I want to make it back from this mission_ the stray thought of _override_ and then the sensation of being ripped from the Drift of having his body _burn_ (like Tokyo for three hours) and the escape pod was deployed and Striker detonated and Chuck woke up on the shore injured alone and bleeding and coughing up fluids that he shouldn't be

and now he's here still coughing up things he shouldn't be

and then his father's hand is on his back, and it's comforting, more comforting than Chuck wishes it would be, but he breathes in through grit teeth, fights the nausea, fights the dizziness, fights to breathe, takes in a deep breath, and lets it out through his nose.

It feels wet, and Chuck opens his eyes up and sees that there's a stain of blood on the blankets.

He remembers Herc's reaction that first time his nose had started bleeding in his presence, when a dark dot had blossomed on his blue dress shirt, but this is a rapidly forming when his nose had started bleeding in the first place, and he doesn't think he can stand to see that horror again.

He grits his teeth, and he knows how strained their relationship is, knows this will make it worse when he should be focusing on making it better (his desire to have this relationship better itself from both ends), but he just grits out, "Get out."

His father's hand stops on his back. He breathes heavily. "Chuck."

"Now," Chuck says. His voice breaks. "Please."

There's the continued sound of heavy breathing (getting heavier and harsher like when he had turned away after telling him what Scott did and how he did what he had to), but then the warmth is gone from his back and there's the sound of footsteps leaving and then a nurse comes in and quietly asks if he's alright and Chuck wants to bark a laugh but instead he says as he's said many times before, "I think adjustments need to be made to my metharocin dose," as quiet and calm and collected as he can manage.

 

He wakes up in Tokyo in a medical office after dozing off after an examination. He knows his health is declining and the news will be bleak. This is not the first exam he's had and it will not be the last. He will go to a tailor to adjust for the lost weight, he will inform Tendo of what changes need to be made to his medical file, he will figure out a way to tell Mako.

He takes all the updates in stride, as the doctor is straightforward -- we will need to adjust your metharocin dose, you will need to better monitor your diet, we know your schedule is busy but we strongly recommend increased appointments -- up until he is told getting into a jaeger again would kill him.

He may be the Marshal, but before that he was a Ranger, and the news burns him, as true as he knows it to be. He told himself he would not waste time pitying himself, not with Tamsin dying, not with the jaeger program stumbling, not when he was building himself a new family, not when he had other concerns. But the train ride from his appointment to the presentation to the UN is long, and he lets his thoughts slide.

 

He wakes up and Raleigh is sitting in his father's chair.

Raleigh just smiles when Chuck blinks awake, while Chuck noiselessly snarls at him.

"It's not going to be easy," Raleigh says.

"Is that so, Mr. Becket?" he asks before he can help himself, before he can find himself.

Raleigh's smile fades, and he just nods, looking too sad, too knowing. "It is."

And Chuck sinks into the bed, too tired to fight him off, too tired of fighting to be himself. "It should have worn off by now."

"Ghosting would have, yeah." Raleigh leans in, and his voice goes soft. "But that's after a willing disconnect on both sides. Being torn from the Drift? It's -- it's different."

"How long?"

Raleigh's expression goes to something pained, before he closes his eyes, rides out the memories. "It was a month before I stopped feeling Yancy."

Chuck laughs, sharp, brittle, laughs harsh when Raleigh's expression goes blank. Laughs so hard and too hard he can't breathe and his vision goes black around the corners. When he can finally breathe again and he comes back to himself, he just looks at a now concerned Raleigh and grins and says, "I don't have that long."

 

 _Where would you rather die?_ he asks. _Here, or in a jaeger?_

There is only one answer and fuck Stacker for thinking Chuck's was different.

 

He sleeps a lot and wakes up in a dozen different place he's never been and he lives as a man he never could be.

 

His father shows in Naomi Sokolov, quietly introduces her, asks if he wouldn't mind talking to her

"Another puff piece?" he asks her.

She blinks, tilts her head to the side. "I was assigned one, yes. An article about the last interview with Chuck Hansen. Celebrated hero." She pauses, adds, "On his deathbed."

He liked her well enough from Stacker's memories, but now Chuck thinks he loves her. His father has treated him like a wounded animal for the past two years but now he's a wounded animal with a muzzle. Raleigh never pulled any punches with him in any sense, but now he treats Chuck with a delicacy. Mako went from looking like she understood him and hated him for it, to now understanding him and pitying him for it. Even Max acts differently around him, the few occasions his father's been able to bring him up. They all know he is dying, but they all refuse to fucking admit it or say anything about it. "Don't know about celebrated."

She shrugs, tension easing from her body. "Maybe not after Mutavore, and boasting about your number of kaiju kills while an entire city was in panic," she says, "but since the Breach closed, the media is singing just about everyone's praises right now."

"And you?"

"I want to be honest."

"You have any questions you wanna ask?"

"Yes," she says, simply. "But I'm more interested in what your questions are."

Chuck laughs. He turns his gaze past her, looking out the window. "Right now, I'm just wondering how to tell my dad that I don't want him to watch me die--" and his throat tightens, and he realizes this is why they don't talk about it around him, because then he goes from angry about what's happening to be scared it's happening, and there are tears stinging in his eyes, as he grits out, "but I don't want to die without him."

She nods. Asks, "What else?"

 

Chuck is hunched over the toilet, panting, gagging at the lingering taste of his breakfast.

Mako is kneeling next to him, a damp towel in her hands. It is warm against his cool skin.

"I don't know," he babbles, "I don't know--" _how much longer, why you're here, why I am--_

"Shhh," she whispers, and she looks at him like she understands him and it breaks her heart.

 

_Where would you rather die?_

Chuck is curled on his side on cold bathroom tiles. 

It's going to be here, soon, but he'd much rather it was a month ago in a jaeger.


End file.
